The work I do

A highly skilled, self-taught IT professional, with a wide range of experience in mobile & web technologies both on the client and the server. Currently working in iOS development. My first app, RADIO Dandelion, a visually rich and dynamic audio streamer, driving a social media content discovery engine, is available in the App Store for iPhone and iPad. My second Indie App, FlightCase is in testing on TestFlight.

I worked on two video delivery apps for Amazon and BSkyB, taking key roles in both projects. The Amazon project was picking up and adapting a large existing codebase and building a team to take it forward, the Sky project was designing a new app from scratch. Both shipped and are available on the AppStore using some of my key UI and networking components. You can see more projects here{: .icon .fa-linkedin-square}.

How I started

Typical story, started software development as a hobby in my bedroom, on an Apple][e teaching myself 6502 Assembly Language with the help of Don Lancaster’s Applewriter Cookbook. I was into electronics as well, building circuits and interfacing them with my code.

I wrote my first business by hand card in PostScript because I had managed to hack a LaserWriter motherboard into an old laser printer I’d been given. I released my first software in the late 1980s on Compuserve, it was a PostScript printer driver for the Apple][gs.

Past Work

Java Developer

Through academic and commercial projects over the years, I built up a wide experience of online content management, Java, JavaScript and XML technologies. A lot of my work involved developing online web applications for managing and publishing content of different kinds, using Open Source software. I was elected a Member of the Apache Software Foundation in 2005. I am a comitter to the Apache Cocoon project. Cocoon is an Open Source project to develop a dynamic standards-based XML + XSL publishing and web application framework, written in Java. I first started using Java, XML and XSL for n Ø 1 s e, statically rendered using XSL, which explores a large set of XML content files to discover relationships between a large set of assets, people, ideas etc. and builds a site from it. Used to take about 50 minutes to run.

Researcher/Lecturer

The HyperMedia Research Centre is a research group based at Westminster University, set up in January 1995 by Andy Cameron, Richard Barbrook and I, as a platform for our joint research into the then emerging field of HyperMedia. The HRC ran an MA in HyperMedia Studies with 25 students per year. I used to run one of the modules, Virtual Communities. Some of my really early web design work can be seen in the site archives.

Green Design

In 1991 I was invited to join O2, the international sustainable design research group. We organised conferences, workshops, exhibitions and design experiments all over the world. Even though my work has moved from the physical to the virtual realm, my work still has relevance.

Game Design

In 1993 I was working on games for TripMedia. We produced Burn:Cycle and The Virtual Nightclub, for Philips. It was sheer hell but I learnt a lot.

Furniture Design

Between 1985 and 1992 I had a small furniture design company. I had large and small clients in the UK and Europe. Yes, I went bust like everybody else in that recession, which is how I got into computing. Here is a portfolio of some of my work. These images took several days each to render, towards the end of the 20th Century.

Talks given at conferences

  • Break My Site at Cocoon GT ‘07 — Rome
  • LDAP & Cocoon at Cocoon GT ‘06 — Amsterdam
  • Cocoon Best Practises at Cocoon GT ‘04 — Ghent
  • Danish Design School — Copenhagen 1998
  • O2 Sustainable Business Challenge — Rotterdam 1998
  • O2 Event Next Step — Copenhagen 1998
  • Design the Internet — London 1996
  • RCA’s Centre for Design — London 1996
  • DEAF — Rotterdam 1995
  • Colaboratorium — Melbourne 1995
  • MultiMedia — London 1995
  • CyberDesign — Århus University 1995
  • Art in Transit — Saint Petersburg 1994

Exhibitions of my work

  • Changer d’Ère — Cité de Sciences in Paris 2007
  • HRC Retrospective — ICA in London 2003
  • Exquisite Corpse — Sigraph in Los Angeles 1995
  • J’sJoint — Sigraph in Los Angeles 1995
  • O2 Collection — Milan Furniture Show 1992
  • O2 New Ways — Seibu, Tokyo 1992

Clients

ABN AMRO Bank Agile Partners Amazon AntiRom Arcadia Group Artek Associated Press BBC BrandWidth Bristol University British Airports Authority British Council British Telecom BSkyB Cambridge University Chelsea Apps Factory Cité de Sciences Conran Design Convent Garden Community Theatre cyberSalon David Worthington Ltd. Digital Diaspora DNA EMAP Publishing Enhanced Editions Future Sound of London Goldsmiths College Guinness Hancocks Ltd. Hippo ICA Incisive Media Institute of International Visual Arts Jamiroquai Kettle's Yard Gallery Lewis & Hickey Live & Play Luminas Mindquarry Mochila Moreover myCircle Inc. New Media Knowledge O2 France Odoko Ogilvy & Mather Otego Panic Productions Philips UK Planet Decode Pronetics Prospect Management Public Records Office Risk2Risk Royal Air Force Royal College of Arts Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology Sainsburys Sony Music Sourcesense Spy Graphics Standard Life Bank Sym Publishing TAXI Interactive The Earth Centre Thorn EMI Toyota GB Trip Media VIP Virgin Records VNUNET Warwick University We Are Moody Welcome Trust Westminster University Zurich University